Church Of St Mary Magdalene

The Church of St Mary Magdalene is a parish church dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, with significant alterations in 1824 by Thomas Ellis. It is constructed of local grey lias stone with Ham stone dressings, and has Welsh slate roofs over stone slate base courses with coped gables. The church comprises a four-cell plan, incorporating a 2-bay chancel, a 3-bay nave, a south-east vestry, a south chapel with an organ chamber above, and a west tower embracing a shallow porch.

The chancel mostly dates to the 14th and 15th centuries and features a chamfered plinth, angled corner buttresses, and a gabletted cross finial. The east window is a 3-light window with 15th-century tracery, set within a hollow-chamfered recess under a square stop arched label. Single 2-light windows flank the sides, potentially with 14th-century tracery. A projecting south-east vestry has a coped south gable with a cross finial and a 2-light window with Y-tracery and a segmental pointed arched doorway.

The nave is relatively plain, without a plinth or buttresses, and contains pointed arched windows with Y-tracery. Three windows are positioned to the north, and two flank the projecting chapel and organ chamber to the south. Fragments of 15th-century tracery have been adapted into 2-light windows at a lower level in the chapel returns. A door at a higher level on the west side is accessed by a flight of stone steps with simple wrought iron guide rails.

The 14th and 15th-century tower has three stages, distinguished by a double plinth, string courses, a battlemented parapet with corner pinnacles (likely 19th century), angled corner buttresses, and corner gargoyles. The west door, the main entrance, features a moulded 4-centre arch under a square label with square stops; above is a 3-light window with 14th/15th-century tracery and an arched square stop label. A shallow statue niche with a flattish canopy is located on the west side at the second stage. A trefoil cusped single light window is on the south side. Upper stage windows are 2-light, 15th-century traceried windows set in hollow chamfered recesses, fitted with timber louvres. A square stair turret extends to the full height of the tower, with slit windows.

The interior largely reflects a 19th-century character. The chancel has a 3-plane rib and panel roof with bosses, rendered walls, and no archway into the vestry. The chancel arch is a standard 15th-century roll and hollow molded design. The nave also has a similar ceiling and plain walls. The tower arch is probably 14th century, with a double chamfer molding and slim early 19th-century fielded panel doors in the porch. Fittings include 19th-century choirstalls incorporating fine 16th-century bench ends, a 17th-century altar table, a wood pulpit (with new lower panels bearing the IHS monogram), a probably 19th-century font, and nave seats of wood and cast iron in a park bench style. Good 20th-century panelling is featured in the chapel under the organ loft on the south wall. A surviving early memorial is a brass plate to Johes Clyke, who died in 1513; the first recorded rector served in 1297.